


Cumbersome and Heavy Body

by BoPeepWithNoSheep



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, F/F, Gen, Loneliness, Lucretia dies BUT SHE GETS BETTER sort of, Lucretia is a lich, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, lichcretia if you will, lucretia's terrible coping mechanisms, more tags to be added because I'm literally the worst at them, there's a wonderland chapter folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2020-11-26 11:29:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20929478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoPeepWithNoSheep/pseuds/BoPeepWithNoSheep
Summary: Lucretia has died more times than she's willing to admit, but she's got a handy secret about that so it doesn't matter so much.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my TAZbang fic! I've had this idea percolating for a WHILE now! It's mostly nonlinear, just snapshots of time throughout this AU and how it affected Lucretia. It *sort of* canon complacent up until a point.

There’s a level of desperation that Lucretia never truly thought she would reach. Never thought that she would stumble upon something she wasn’t meant to see while leafing desperately through the myriad of papers scattered at Barry’s workstation. Normally on bad years if they need something of Barry’s after they’ve lost him Lup or Taako go through his desk for whatever they need but--

This is so much worse than just one bad year.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Barry must have agreed with that, to have such detailed notes. They’re hidden of course, but Lucretia thinks she’s allowed this breach of privacy. She’s so desperate and she’s the only one left and really she hadn’t meant to find them. She just wanted more detailed ship schematics, or perhaps an engine manual--She never expected the detailed theories and half-written instructions for a dark necromatic ritual to be tucked between the chapters of how to change the ship’s air filters and how to repair the water heater.

Her skin crackles, in the distance she can hear Fischer crying in distress as she watches her own body tumble to the floor. This isn’t the ceremony she’d considered when the idea first clawed its way into her mind. Of course, she hadn’t really planned much at all, but she knows it shouldn’t have been like this. A bounty hunter dead on the living room carpet and her own body bleeding out beside him. She’s dead--She’s dead but she’s not because she killed him first, she sacrificed him and now her very soul _crackles_.

She is a pure being of arcane energy and she watches her body take its final breath.

Then Lucretia lies back down within it and--and she’s still bleeding and it hurts but she feels disconnected. She’s cut a thread she shouldn’t have somewhere. She doesn’t think it’s supposed to feel like this, her own body shouldn’t feel so foreign even with the pulse of necromatic magic that now flows through her veins like blood.

Fischer cries again and with jerky movements, Lucretia’s body turns. Fischer has been free of their tank for weeks now, they don’t actually need it to survive. It’s more of a comfort object really. It’s like a childhood bed, soft and welcoming with the scent of simpler times.

Times aren’t simple right now, Lucretia fears they’ll never be again if she doesn’t succeed.

Now that the danger is gone--_Is dead on the living room carpet_\--Fischer floats forward, tendrils held out towards Lucretia as they croon in concern. Softly, slowly, tendrils fall over her form, assessing for damage and her poor poor Fischer keens when it lays delicate limbs over the still open wound on her side.

Oh. Oh, yes, she needs to close that.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s funny that no one notices, that everyone’s eyes seem to just glaze over the magic tucked into the space between her own inlaid magic and her soul. The little thread that connected the two to her flesh and bones that she snipped away.

Lucretia expects Barry to notice, she stole his research and bastardized it into something profane but workable. She wonders when Davenport will notice, his keen captain’s eye taking note of her change in character but not the changes to her physical being. She expects Lup to notice because the woman is nothing if not keen with uncanny insight. She waits for Taako to call her on her odd behavior but nothing comes of it. Magnus comforts her on her year alone, yes, but he doesn't know enough about magic to really notice that something about her has changed in that way. She thinks Merle must notice eventually because sometimes she forgets that her soul and body aren’t quite in sync anymore and things get a little turned around. Her body crackles with energy on bad nights, nights she wakes up with nightmares of hidden blades and a corpse on the carpet.

It’s fine. Everyone is fine. She’s going to be fine.

Lucretia gets better at lying to herself, just as surely as she slowly forms a thought that maybe it’s best if she _doesn’t_ tell them. It’s none of their business, what she does with her body, what depths of desperation she’d been dragged down into. So she just never says anything, never gives details of her year alone besides what she must give for the sake of documentation.

She leaves out the ramshackle ritual, leaves out the crackle beneath her skin, dives into further research on wards and shields.

She’s been working on a shield, something that could protect the ship so that maybe she could have had a moment of peace. She’d never had enough time when she’d been alone, but now that her family is back--Now that she’s not running for her life alone and terrified and dead, she has time now.

She develops a barrier, it might be visible but it’s beneath the first layer of her skin so she’s not quite sure. Nothing can see through it, she’d tested with true sight spells and artifacts her family had collected over the years. Better still, it’s very good at dampening blows, an invisible armor so no one catches her off guard like that bounty hunter ever again.

Lucretia keeps her new form close to her chest, buries it in a box deep inside and tucks it away for maybe someday when things are safe. Even when Barry and Lup finally act on their plan she stays tight-lipped, she'd waited too long. There's something wrong with that, that breach of trust and if she says something now what will it wrought? What bonds will bend and which will break under her lies?

Her year alone is the last time Lucretia dies during the Century, she hopes it will be the last time at all.


	3. Chapter 3

She could destroy this terrible horrible place if she just lets go, let’s her feeble human body succumb to one of the twins' games. They’re powerful, very much so, but few things are as unabashedly destructive as an unstable lich.

A voice above her croons, “Darling, the show must go on! You can’t _possibly_ think _you’re_ done when Cam here is still playing so diligently.”

Lucretia is _very_ unstable right now.

It’s a good self-awareness to have, something that keeps her from breaking down further in spite of the fact that the man she brought to guide her to this horrific place is only a head now. There’s no way she can save him, the moment they leave Wonderland’s field of magic the necrotic energy keeping him alive will fail. She’d signed his death sentence the moment she urged him into Wonderland in spite of his own misgivings. A stupid, foolhardy decision she will not allow to be the doom of this world and the entire multi-planar system besides.

“Whatever are you _thinking_, dear girl? A Lady shouldn’t furrow her brows so much, it’s terribly _ugly_.” They run commentary above her but she resolutely ignores their twittering. They are irritating gnats. Mosquitoes and ticks attempting to bleed her dry but she’s been through worse. She’s survived worse and she’ll survive them. She must for the sake of this plane but--

Cam is doomed if they lose and doomed if they win, another splatter of blood against her palms. Another life she’s ruined, another goddamn failure battering against the walls of her carefully built control because--

Control. She _has_ to keep herself in control.

She breathes deeply, brings a hand gently up to wipe sweat off her brow. Her skin feels strange, she knows intellectually that it’s a combination of blood encrusting half her face and the artificial age clinging to her bones. She lost, a sacrifice to think upon later but she has to keep going just like she always has. Carefully sacrificing the least expensive aspects of her life, the ones she can live without in order to live at all.

“Ah, ah, ah, Lucy-Lu no naps in wonderland!” A voice echoes above her, there’s a burning sensation against her back where she’s leaning against the wall. It’s absolutely searing but she wills herself not to cry out, not to give those two bastards any more fuel.

Lucretia breathing hitches as she pushes herself up and pushes the staticy magic in her soul back into that careful box in her heart, double checks the wards Maureen tattooed onto her skull. It makes telepathy useless, makes her an insufferable mystery to the twins and for that alone Lucretia thinks she could kiss Maureen if she gets out.

_When_.

When she gets out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, here comes the maurcretia

Maureen looks absolutely gorgeous, Lucretia finds herself tongue-tied as her fiance--_they’re getting married_\--strides up to her all swagger and easy composure. They’re both so very composed but there’s always something so different about Maureen’s composure compared to Lucretia’s. Where Lucretia’s is like ice, smooth on the surface but ultimately brittle. Her love is like a delicately tuned engine brimming with power and potential energy. There’s never a doubt in her mind that at any moment Maureen is thinking at least seven steps ahead of her, it’s half the reason she loves her so much.

Maureen can outwit Lucretia in all the ways that matter but loves her enough to never lord it over her. It really should come as no surprise then, when they’re finally alone in the sanctity of their room after the rehearsal dinner, Maureen carefully coming up behind her as she takes off her jewelry.

Her fiance--_soon to be wife and that's still just so bafflingly wonderful_\--wraps her arms around Lucretia’s shoulders and leans with not quite her full weight. Lucretia always finds she likes that much more than she’ll readily let on, the grounding force of her love’s form a physical reminder that she isn’t alone.

Her voice is low, uncharacteristically lilting when she asks, “When exactly did you plan on telling me you were dead, dear? Before or after the wedding?”

It sends an absolute chill down Lucretia’s spine and a buzzing through her brain. Something _crackles_, and when she looks down she sees grey-white static surrounding her hands. Like little snow flurries mixed with soot and ash.

“I-I’m not--” She wheezes out the words, and she realizes her chest feels so tight. Trapped, she feels trapped in her own skin. Too much and Maureen is right there and she _knows_. Lucretia’s been so honest with Maureen, has told her so much about herself, about her family, about her home--

But not this, because _no one_ knows this but Fischer.

“Lucretia--Lucretia, look at me.”

Hands gently take hers, guide them up until her own palms are pressed against her cheeks. They feel too warm, like she has a fever but it’s a little easier to focus on Maureen crouched in front of her, “That was a bad joke, you’re still alive it’s okay.”

Lucretia isn’t sure when she’d started crying until Maureen wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes. She stammers, “I--I’m not--”

Maureen hushes her, presses a kiss to her forehead and lingers there. Her breath is soft against Lucretia’s brow as she speaks, “You’re _alive_, you’re here with me. _Safe_ with me.”

It’s all it takes really, for Lucretia to lean forward, wrap her arms around Maureen and practically collapse into the shorter woman. The angle is awkward, Lucretia’s sitting and Maureen is crouched and sooner or later they’re going to tumble to the floor in a pile of limbs and tears but Lucretia doesn’t care. She needs this, needs to be close, needs to feel safe.

She always feels more alive when she’s holding Maureen and gods she needs that right now.

“I-I’m sorry--I didn’t, I didn’t _tell_ you.”

Maureen adjusts them slightly, leans into her arms and carefully perches herself in Lucretia’s lap. Her hands never stray far from Lucretia’s face just soothing circles on her cheekbones. “I-I had thought you’d realized I’d figured it out. I’m not a _subtle_ woman, Lucretia.”

And--Well, there are a few things that make more sense now. Mostly, Maureen’s continuous questions about necromancy after she’d handed over the bits and pieces of tech from the robot plane that had still been left over in the starblaster. Like she had expected Lucretia to understand these things on the same level Maureen did. It was a bit flattering, and a testament to her shielding capabilities, that while Maureen had pieced her necromatic secret together with context clues she hadn’t figured out that Lucretia was sort of a rickety sort of lich.

Lucretia holds herself together through mostly sheer force of will and a metric fuck ton of abjuration magic.

“I guess I can be a little dense sometimes,” Lucretia self-deprecates forcing a smile onto her face so maybe Maureen will look a little less sad. It doesn’t work quite the way she wants, Maureen tuts and shakes her head but then she leans in and rests her chin on Lucretia’s shoulder.

“Not dense, you’re just one track minded at times. It isn’t bad, love.” Maureen’s the light of her life, a light in her life shining in on Lucretia before her mind can wallow too deep in it’s own darkness. Lucretia isn’t sure what she did to deserve a woman like Maureen, is more than certain she doesn’t really deserve her--but she’s selfish and she’ll take her anyway for as long as Maureen will have her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” She squeezes her fiance--the woman who will be her wife tomorrow and tilts her head to press a kiss against the woman’s hairline, “I was scared.”

“You don’t ever need to be scared of me, I’m here for you. That’s what this whole wedding thing is supposed to be about--well that and an excuse to make my father spend money on trivial things he hates, that’s also pretty satisfying.”

“Well, I’m glad I could help you piss off your dad.”

“I would marry you even if it didn’t piss off my father.”

Lucretia cracks a smile, a real one this time, “What an honor.”

She means it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writes fluff then IMMEDIATELY follows up with angst

Things are always so good until they rot and fall apart. Lucretia knows she can be neglectful, to herself mostly, and she’d never considered before that such habits could hurt anyone but herself.

Maureen loves her, she loves Maureen but she also knows she loves Maureen in spite of her own self-hate. In spite of the twisting ghouls inside her brain that Maureen hates. Maureen wants her to fight them off, not for the betterment of Faerun and to ensure its safety but for herself and that’s—

It’s not that they don’t love each other, it’s really that Maureen loves her so much. Not too much, there’s never a too much because Lucretia is _greedy greedy greedy _desperate for every scrap of anything Maureen is willing to give her_._ At her very core lies a terribly selfish monster covered in thorns, a deadly Silverpoint to all that she loves and Maureen hass finally gotten herself nicked.

Maureen’s pacing the lab, Lucretia’s sitting up on one of the tables with a half dozen sensors attached to her body. The tests had calmed her wife at first, let her feel like there was something she could do for her beloved. Now with so much data either damning or inconclusive, it’s just another source of dread for her. She pulls at her beautiful hair, furrows her dark brows and shudders,

“I can’t _watch_ you like this, Lucretia. You can’t live like this, you’ve got half your soul sealed away constantly! It’s not--I don’t even know how you’re anchored.”

Lucretia does and doesn’t. Knows what keeps her heart going if not her soul, “I love you.”

“I know you do, but I wasn’t _there_ Lucretia, I wasn’t part of your ritual! I might be helping keep you together but I’m not your keystone.”

It’s a damned thing that Maureen is so clever, that she knows Lucretia so well. Because Lucretia is missing time, and she might not have noticed it so soon if it hadn’t been for Maureen’s hawkish observations. The disconnect in her soul and her body is getting fuzzier, something is wrong with her but Lucretia hadn’t noticed and likely wouldn’t have noticed if not for Maureen.

Lucretia doesn’t want to hurt Maureen, but she also doesn’t know how to fix this without taking down her barrier. Maureen doesn’t quite understand why she can’t do that, why she’s so scared to do that. It’s kept her together for decades, any time her will faltered or her body fell to the weakness of human fragility the barrier keeps her _whole_.

She can’t afford to fall apart now, things are getting so close. With Fischer’s egg, she can almost, perhaps see an end in sight. The idea of seeing her family again, even if they don’t remember her, it’s helping keep her together. The fabric of her magic tattered and torn as it is carefully patched in bright silver threads. Bonds forged over the course of the century she took from them, they’re fragmentary now thinning and maybe they’ll snap one by one. She has to work fast, has to work through the spots in her memory when her soul fuzzes over, has to work and prepare the bureau for the oncoming storm that her actions will herald.

Has to work through Maureen’s worry.

There’s a moment of time--Lucretia thinks it’s a moment. She’s only just blinked but where Maureen had been several feet away from her moments ago now she’s in her face. Maureen’s hands are grasping at her shoulders shaking her gently.

Lucretia blinks away the static, Maureen is crying.

“I can’t _do_ this, Lucretia,” Her wife whispers as slowly Lucretia’s mind focuses back on her surroundings. The table she’s sitting on is cold, the hands gripping her so hard she thinks Maureen’s nails might break skin feels feverishly hot. The lab is darker than she remembers it being. Evening moonlight peeks through the windows where a midafternoon sky had formerly sat, “Please don’t make me watch you destroy yourself.”

Lucretia sits speechless, her tongue still a separate serpent, coiled up but unable to strike. There’s nothing she can say, nothing that will comfort Maureen. Suddenly, she’s so very sorry that Maureen fell in love with a wretched creature such as herself, one that’s willing to set herself on fire to keep the world from burning. Maureen will burn with her if Lucretia doesn't pull away in time. Burn away the light in her eyes, burn away all that love in her heart until only despair remains. Lucretia won't power herself on any despair but her own.

It’s then that she realizes, for Maureen’s sake, she has to let her go.


	6. Chapter 6

Barry making his way up to the Moonbase _complicates_ things. She has a mixed set of emotions, finding Robbie who isn’t Robbie in her office. There’s anxiety, yes, but also some level of relief, just an overwhelming rush of emotions that makes her brain fuzz over for just a few moments--

And that’s the problem because if anyone is going to see through her when she’s slowly falling apart like this, it’s going to be Barry. She’s stolen so much from him, she wonders if he’s ever suspected her of stealing his old theories. Of course, her work so to speak paled in comparison to his own. That much was clear when she saw him floating above Robbie’s unconscious form. His visage was, perhaps, somewhat more rumpled than she remembers ever having seen it. His robe dulled like a toy left in the sun, but his form was concrete. No fuzziness or jitteriness that she sometimes feels. Even without a body to cling to, Barry is _solid_ in a way Lucretia doesn’t think she’s been in years.

Beneath flesh and bones, she's still just a wayward soul, a shivering ball of hand broken bonds and desperate tears. It's a near thing that she can still function, that she can still think, that she hasn't dissolved into a mindless monster of suffering and despair while she waits to fight another incoming monster. She's still a monster, and perhaps that's the worst part because she is the worst kind of monster, one that can _think_. A monster with a mind and a plan and so few scruples on how to achieve what she has decided must be done. Barry and Lup were never monsters because it isn't her lichdom that makes Lucretia like this.

Love might be part of it, she thinks. That Barry and Lup were so very unique in that they were made of love, fundamentally purer than a being like herself, made from desperation and despair. Love is a harder fuel though, Lucretia knows that herself. There was a small copse of time, back on the Starblaster when she’d actually been stable, or at least something resembling it, surrounded by love and bonds that could power her.

Then she was alone again, even if it was by choice, and she nothing to fuel herself with but desperation and hope. Wonderland changed things slightly, made her realize she didn’t necessarily need hope outside of her desperation.

Wonderland taught her a lesson in despair and how to channel it.

Maureen and Lucas beautifully and impossibly brought that solid feeling back, for a little while, but now they’re gone too. Their tethers seemed to have been the final straw in her own stability, she’d felt something break the night the boys told her that Lucas was just as gone as Maureen. The one happy thing she’d managed to piece together on Faerun, her little found family was shattered by her own hands. Again, she’s betrayed her family and this time she hadn’t even _meant_ to.

She can’t let Barry stay, even if there’s a part of her soul that sings at his proximity. The danger of him figuring out that she’s hiding another voidfish is too high. If he were to find where she has the fragmentary Light of Creation slowly fusing back together under her care the consequences could be dire. It’s all just one giant potential disaster. He has to go, it might be the last time she sees him so she cherishes that but she raises the Bulwark Staff, taps it twice against her office floor with a deafening crack and casts Geas.

She apologizes when she sends him off, it doesn’t mean much she’s sure, but it’s all she can give for now.

Once she gets him offbase, once she has Robbie contained for any charms or commands Barry could have left with him she makes a decision. It pains her to do so, not so much emotionally because she’s so close now she’s mostly numbed herself to that sort of thing. It’ll all be over soon and she won’t likely be around in the After to make up for anything she’s done to her family anyway. She just has to hope that saving this world for them, giving them a chance to finally settle down and live will be enough.

But it hurts, it _physically_ hurts when she sets up the lich barrier.

Like needles under her skin, like a dull pounding in her skull rattling her brain, the only thing that keeps the holy symbol from absolutely shredding her to pieces is the barrier. The barrier protects her, it thrums in time with the Bulwark Staff, soothes her aching bones just the smallest bit. Makes it tolerable, makes the pain a secondary thought as much as it can be. Keeps her going because she has to. Lucretia has to keep walking, one foot in front of the other foot until she can end this.

Pain is secondary, all pain is secondary to the mission.

She left her family, she left Maureen, she lost Maureen, she lost Lucas, she’ll lose herself soon so really, a little pain doesn’t matter. Not if she can just finish the mission


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slightly mild gore warning this chapter but it's not really described in detail

Things move very fast as the Hunger descends on the moon. Taako begins a countdown but in spite of everything, Lucretia takes a step forward. His eyes narrow and he barks more threats but her eyes aren’t focused on Taako but on something behind him--There’s a tendril, a sharp deadly black opal point shining in the heat of battle. It’s aimed for Taako’s heart and Lucretia is _so_ tired. Lucretia moves without thinking because her barrier has always kept her safe, has always kept her whole. There’s no need to cast one around Taako when she’s so tired and the one beneath her skin will work nicely.

Lucretia falls, listing to the side as several magic missiles slam into her arm and shoulder. Those don’t really matter though, because there’s a hole in her chest. Iridescent and stained red Lucretia almost laughs as she stares down at the scorpion tail protruding from her robes. She doesn’t feel herself fall, only feels a dull buzzing sensation before a hush falls over everything around her.

She should feel pain. She should feel anything but all she feels is a roaring static in her ears. When she comes back to awareness too many things are happening at once. More hungerlings have entered the field, she thinks she must be dreaming for a moment because Lup, incorporeal and spectacular is part of the circle of her family just above her.

“Lu-Lucretia,” Barry rasps and it’s not her eyes that blink so much as her entire being, “What did you _do_?”

Her form stutters, her body laying prone below it. “Oh,” Her voice glitches oddly in places, like a popping microphone, “Oh, no. This wasn’t supposed to happen again.”

It doesn’t take long for the cacophony of her family’s protests to fill her ears. There’s nothing to dull the roar, no refuge deep in her chest. For the first time in so long, Lucretia _feels_\--And it’s _awful_, it’s terrible guilt swimming with indignation she did this for them, for this entire plane and no one will _listen_ to her. She’s had this plan for so long, it’s not--it’s not foolproof in the sense that it’s unstoppable. No, the spell necessitates her presence, her knowledge, her _power_. She has to be there to finish things but--

Well, now they all know that she doesn’t actually have to be _alive_ to finish things.

The Bulwark staff is still below her, clutched in her—in her body’s hands. It takes little more than a twitch of one staticy limb for the relic to fly up to her. She doesn’t hold it, she cannot clutch it for the stability she so desperately needs but it is soothing now that it’s within her orbit. It whispers to her but it’s quieter than before, it used to sing in tune with the barrier beneath her skin but that’s gone now. A new barrier, she needs a new barrier, stronger than the last one to protect everything.

The air around her glows, a bubble forms with her at it’s center the light of the barrier twisting and refracting off the crackling darkness of her form. There’s a dull buzzing for a moment, not in her ears because she doesn’t currently have ears. It’s somewhere in her consciousness and she turns to survey her family and friends. They all stare up at her and the world lists slightly, just for a moment before shifting back into perfect clarity.

She hasn’t seen this well since before Wonderland, before she’d given up years of her life and her vision had fuzzed around the edges and--

And Lup looks _beautiful_.

“Lup,” The word comes out something like a prayer, such a desperate distorted sound, “I-I looked for you for so long. I-I’m so _sorry_.”

She wants to cry--to cry for the first time in months but she can’t and instead, the magic in her gut sizzles and sputters. The barrier reacts in kind, though it never breaks it almost vibrates with energy, with emotion. Lucretia can’t even breath to calm herself down, she has no lungs with which to breath. No eyes to leak tears just an old, tired soul hissing in the center of this circle of her family.

Lup floats forward, something like a grin on her amorphous face, “Easy there, Lucy. It’s all okay, no skin off my bones you couldn’t have known I was stuck in there,” She drifts closer and Lucretia nearly falters because it’s just--it’s been so long and she’d really. Lucretia has resigned herself to many things in life, locked all of her grief and mourning into a little box in her chest and buried it under duty and work and Lup had perhaps been the thing she had dug the very deepest hole to hide away that sorrow.

And she’s _here_, and Lucretia can just barely believe what she’s seeing. Wonders if perhaps she’s hallucinating, that this is a dying dream and she’ll wake in a few moments as a lich alone with her family all hating her for what she had to do but--

“Come on, Lucretia lemme get a better look at you,” The calmness wafts off of Lup and it has Lucretia’s hackles settling, “That’s some nasty looking magic you’ve used on yourself. Just let down that barrier and we can help you out, alright?”

But Lup is here and her gaze is gentle and understanding and Lucretia wants to cry, she almost lets go of the staff. Almost lets her barrier drop so Lup can get closer but she shakes her head and pulls the staff closer,

“I-I can’t--I have to save the world.”

“What you’re doing is going to kill the world, Lucy. You’ve gotta _stop_.”

And with that the peaceful feeling filling Lucretia’s chest shatters. Her magic flares, she hears the cries of protest going up around her but she continues heedless of them. The mission, she has to finish the mission or else everything she's done, everything she's _sacrificed_ it’s all been for _nothing_.

“I-I’m gonna save all of us, I-I _promise_.”

And then, Lucretia is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back dialogue, my old friend. Lucretia is finally in a state where she's forced to process the world around her without being able to numb herself to her emotions because whoops Liches are All Emotion.


	8. Chapter 8

She hides in the Starblaster because it’s the most logical place to go. The only people who know of it’s hiding place are all dead--She’d never brought Davenport here, too afraid that the sight of the Starblaster would further injure his voidfish addled mind. She can focus her barrier in relative peace here, even as her form crackles and sputters at every odd sound that manages to permeate the hidden hangar.

Just a few more minutes, she has to hope the world can hold out for a little longer under the attack. The spell she’s channeling is powerful, incredibly so and she’s not entirely sure she’ll survive the full casting but as long as she can just set the spell into motion that won’t matter. She’s been working for years to perfect all of her fail saves, as long as she casts the spell in its entirety then she doesn’t have to survive to see it through--

Which is for the best, the world at peace? She can’t really think of a place for her there.

She’s getting closer, every minute she feels a bit more numb, feels a bit more resigned to the fate she’s written for herself. The barrier around her becomes more stable, a little more crystalline, shimmering and transparent but strong as diamond. Once she’s finished the channeling process it will grow beyond her, larger and larger until it swallows up the entire plane--

She hears a noise, a great groan of long-unused metal and all thought freezes. How did they find her? None of the should know about this place, only two people know about this place and they’re both lost to her, to anyone. She hears the frantic chatter of her family above her. Lucretia’s form fluctuates wildly, sideways and frizzling as the lonely journal keeper spots a ghost in the crowd of her family--

_“Lucas!”_

All thoughts of defending the Starblaster leave her mind as she surges forward, Davenport and Magnus are both pushed back by the sudden rush of energy but Lucas, who had stood between them is utterly untouched and--

And Lucretia can’t touch him, not like she wants to. Without thinking she summons two mage hands two gently take his face, turning it too and fro to get a better look. He’s alive--her boy is alive and standing before her safe and somewhere up above them the fluorescent lights that line the hanger shatter in a hail of glass shards.

None of them hit Lucas, safe in the shadow of her barrier.

His eyes are wide, confused and his face is gaunter than she last saw him even if the beard he’s grown since then makes it harder to tell. He still forgets to eat, Maureen had always had her hands full between Lucas and herself, making sure the two didn’t get lost in their work.

Lucretia moves closer, she can’t--she can’t touch him not really but she pushes her form against his. Feels the steady thrum of his heart, the _confusion-fear-confusion_ patter of his soul. She can’t hug him, can’t pull him into her arms and hold him so that she can’t lose him again but for now this is close enough.

Lucas flails for a moment, clearly unsure as to what the good hell is surrounding him until he spots the staff in her orbit. Her boy blinks and stammers, “_M-Mom?!_”

“Lucas, you’re _alive_.”

A feeling of pure jubilance fills her soul, something bright and unabashedly happy and Lucretia’s certain she’s never felt this sensation of pure unmitigated glee in her entirely too long life. For a moment there’s no broken camera shutter feeling in her heart, no mournful crackle of the joints of her bonds. No, this one singular moment she shines brighter than a star as she basks in the pure joy that her step-son is _alive_.

Fuck the gods, thank the stars she didn’t lose him too.

She’s laughing, and it’s infectious because before she realizes Lucas’ sweet nasally laugh fills the deck of the star blaster. Without thinking she spreads out her magic and a levitate spell leaks out of her being. It lifts Lucas a little less than a foot off the ground and Lucretia spins with him, like when he was fourteen at her and Maureen’s wedding and she had led him in some silly partner dance Merle had taught them all decades ago. With the lift in the very middle that had left the boy first spluttering in indignation before his cries had petered out into laughter when Davenport had been her next partner and the man had proceeded to mirror the exact same dance, including a semi-successful lift. Lucretia had needed to lift her knees to accommodate for the height difference and it had sent Lucas into a fit of laughter.

That had been such a happy moment, and maybe it’s easier to remember that without a sting because _Lucas is here_. Her family may grow to hate her for what she’s done, but she still has at least a few scraps of the family she had pieced together in Faerun. The realization that she hasn’t scorched the earth of the ones she had allowed close takes a certain weight from her chest as much as it solidifies her decision.

She has to do this, so Lucas can keep on living. So there’s someone left to tell her family about Maureen, tell them that even when Lucretia had allowed herself to become a monster she’d still been at least a _little_ human--

“Hey, not to break up the fucking _weirdest_ reunion we’ve had today,” Taako's voice cuts to the quick of Lucretia's sudden joy, abruptly dread fills her being and slowly gently, Lucas floats back down to the ground. There’s something distinctly calculating about how Taako stares at her and Lucretia has to will herself not to wilt back behind Lucas, “But we’ve gotta do something about this saving the _goddamn_ world thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hello, this one is Actually Happy! Lucretia Deserves Good News!!!!


	9. Chapter 9

When everything is done and over with, when the Hunger is defeated, it takes all of Lucretia’s effort not to quite literally fall apart--

The thing is, she hasn’t planned for this, hasn’t had an ‘_after_’ in mind since she’d left Maureen. Then, when Maureen died and she’d thought Lucas lost along with her well, her ‘_after_’ had changed. It was alright then if she’d let go once things were over because then she’d probably end up in the stockade, with Maureen and Lucas. That seemed better than staying tethered to a human form, in constant pain, she wouldn’t be able to ignore without the assistance of her Bulwark Staff.

She could let go, she could give up so long as she succeeded. That had seemed like such a nice thought.

It’s not nice anymore, because impossibly Lucas is alive and here and Maureen is still gone, that’s a wrench in her little happy ending because she has to make a choice, she can’t have them both. That’s always been the reality of Lucretia’s life, impossible to make choices that she must make anyway. Hurting herself and everyone that loves her in the short term for long term profit and she just--she’s tired. She doesn’t want to hurt anymore.

Her skin, the facsimile of jittering static that holds her form together practically vibrates from her distress. No one has really noticed her yet, too busy reuniting and celebrating and the cacophony of noise around her is so much.

She shouldn’t be here, she thinks and feels something in her chest tear, this is their happy ending, not hers. There’s a rattling in her head, a clanging among the happy cheers and it sounds like heavy waterlogged books hitting the bottom of a tank. _Let go_, a little voice tells her that sounds so much like the Bulwark Staff, _It’s okay now let go_.

And she almost does, she lets her seams loosen, feels her magic start to ebb and flow out. It hurts a little bit, makes her think of that moment all those years ago desperately holding her hand against a gut wound as her life drained out of her. Writing sloppy sigils with her own blood, hiding behind Fischer’s tank and waiting to see if her fast thinking would save her family or if she’d doomed them with her weakness after all.

This time though, it’s not her head that feels light and not quite there as something that belongs inside slowly leaks out. It’s everything. The world lists because _It’s Okay_, she reminds herself, _Her family is safe and it’s okay now_\--

“Madame Director?”

The sound of that little voice, the world settles for just a moment and Lucretia’s seams tighten when she looks down. Her voice crackles when she rasps out, **“Angus?”**

His eyes are wide and his hands--Her gaze immediately draws towards his hands, scratched and cut from the fighting. He’s trembling still and it makes Lucretia want to frown, why hasn’t he been seen by a healer? The thoughts solidify something inside her, helps her pieces fit back together in a fragile amalgamation of herself. It’s a goal, something for her terribly one-track mind to latch onto.

She floats forward, her hissing limbs popping quietly as she lowers herself down to his level, **“Angus,”** she repeats softly and reaches towards him, **“Hands.”**

The little boy blinks in surprise but doesn’t seem outright frightened of her, which is good, Lucretia knows this form can be frightening. Fischer was scared of her, for the first month before they settled to the sound of sputtering limbs and odd lights that sometimes peaked through her mortal body when she grew unstable. Angus seems apprehensive but not afraid, he holds his hands out and Lucretia nods as she sets about casting cure wounds on the boy.

He jumps a bit, as her magic drifts into his hands, she knows it feels different from what she used when she was still alive. Filtered through her barrier her magic never held any trace of necromancy but now it’s threaded through, one fine red filament among all the white.

“Um--Tha-Thank you, Madame Director.” He stammers as the wounds close with not even a smidge of scarring. It occurs to her that she didn’t think to ask if he wanted the scars. Magnus always did but Angus is so young, so _little_. He can keep his battle scars when he’s older when he gets into fights because of his own free will and not because she and her family drew a monstrous being to his plane.

Lucretia nods because words are terribly difficult right now. She finds that funny in a way, as they’ve always been her greatest weapon--but now she supposes that the world is at peace. It doesn’t need her mind as it’s stalwart sword.

“Are you--Are you okay?” His voice is still somewhat timid, but she thinks it’s more that the young boy is reeling from recent events than anything. He’ll be alright, children are terribly tenacious and Angus is young and bright. With the help of the family, he’s so newly acquired he’ll get where he needs to be.

_He’s safe,_ the voice reminds her slightly more insistent this time, _He doesn’t need you._

She nods without thinking, the voice is right but even if he doesn’t need her specifically he’d needed someone to look at those hands. Everyone else is busy, Lucretia can do this last thing for them, make sure that Angus is hale and healthy before she fades away. Angus watches her, his eyes squinting slightly as he tilts her head--Ah, to hear what she can most likely. Clever boy.

“Are you talking with someone, Madame Director?”

Another nod, and she gestures towards him. It’s easier to lie when she doesn’t really have a face, **“With you.”**

Angus doesn’t look terribly convinced but he also looks too tired to truly push, “Do you need anything?” 

**“Say goodbye for me?”** He’s a polite boy, Lucretia thinks, he’s someone she can trust to do this. It would be rude to ruin their happiness, barge in and do it herself but they all love Angus. He can be her messenger.

His eyes widen and he reaches out, but his hand, dusty but free of scratches and injury, phases through her form. Lucretia shivers slightly at the sensation it causes, warmth shoots up her limb, momentarily letting her feel something besides the tingling numbness. It’s so warm, it almost burns but it isn’t a terrible feeling. To feel really isn’t so bad now that the constant thrum of dull pain is gone.

“You shouldn’t be saying goodbye--We saved the world.” he says suddenly and well, Lucretia’s already thought him clever once today, that his brain even exhausted can see through her isn’t a surprise. She’s getting sloppy, she used to be such a better liar.

She’s been lying for so long, all of them piled up higher and higher, leaving her further to fall as her deceptions built the gallows that would ultimately hang her. She doesn’t want to lie anymore, not really, she just doesn’t want to ruin this day for her family.

Honesty is hard, but looking at Angus staring at her with hard frightened eyes, not frightened of her but for her Lucretia finds her well of duplicity has finally run dry. She heaves a sigh, the air around her shudders, moving the tiny rocks of debris that litter the ground around her. She sinks to the ground, her form almost deflating as she hovers just above the broken sidewalk of the quad, **“I’m so _tired_, Angus. It’s hard to hold on.”**

Angus makes a noise, somewhere between a wheeze and yelp and again he moves to--to touch her. Hold her hand, she thinks by the way his own little fingers graze against her phantom limb. “You--You can’t let go! Madame Director, we won!”

**“I know. That’s all I wanted.”**

And that’s the crux of it, that promise of victory, that hypothetical tomorrow has been getting her through so many days. Now it’s here and she just feels numb. There’s a sort of distant happiness but it’s too muddled with resignation and dull surprise that she’s still _here_. Incredibly, impossibly, infuriatingly she’s here. Not alive but here and floating somewhere between, a twilight moment of a human being. She’s dead but not gone, here but unmoored and poised to drift off at any moment.

She doesn’t even think she could stay if she tried, there are no tethers left. She’s betrayed her family from the Starblaster, her family from faerun is shattered and so is she, in a way. It’s easier to break, she’s been holding the pieces together so long, cutting her hands on the sharp edges and finally, she can_ let go_.

But the look on Angus’ face, that’s keeping her a little more solid--There must be something she can say, some clever turn of phrase to make him realize this is for the best. She’ll have to be gentle because he is young and not so well-versed with grief as her family from the Starblaster is. Some of them might be sad for the loss of her, for a little while, but they’ll grow past it. Angus, well, he’s not so hardened as they are and she knows he might hurt for longer.

It’s a pain he doesn’t deserve, she knows this, but it’s hard to see past her own pain. Past her own longing for everything to just _stop_.

Of course now when she needs them most, Lucretia can’t find the words. She doesn’t even have a tongue and yet it’s weighted down with lead and tangled in fatigue and weariness. Angus’ face scrunches, somewhere between concentration and a pronounced pout as his hand trails up to the broken wand on his lanyard. Lucretia almost reaches out to take it, it isn’t safe to cast with a shattered foci like that but instead, something else stops her.

Angus casts mage hand and ever so carefully the little blue hand creeps into her own and squeezes her fingers. It shocks her to feel something touch her in this form, but it’s magic, made to interact with the corporeal and incorporeal alike and Angus uses it to hold her hand.

Lucretia can’t cry right now, but she thinks she would be if she could.

“You’ve _gotta_ stay, alright?” Angus is pleading, practically begging and he sounds so young, “We didn’t--We didn’t defeat The Hunger and save the world to lose _more_ people.”

Lucretia knows he means well, and maybe he’s right but even if he is that doesn’t change the fact that her own form, her own magic is splintering out of her control. Her lichdom isn’t a stable thing, like Barry and Lup’s held firm by love and careful crafting. Lucretia is a house held together with shoestring and staples and she’s ready to crumble at any moment.

**“I-I can’t--My tethers, they’re _gone_.”**

She’s broken them all herself, systematically and with careful precision. It doesn’t make the pain lessen but it’s a sort of hollow comfort to know that at least this time, she could only blame herself for her ultimate fall. This won’t be on anyone else’s head, that she’s too weak to remain whole without those little silver strings piecing them back together.

Angus squares his shoulders and the little mage hand squeezes hers again as he declares, “That--That’s bullshit! You have plenty of bonds, you can make _new_ tethers!”

He scrambles to his feet, glances around desperately but they’re tucked away into a corner of the quad, surrounded by shattered concrete and rubble. “St-Stay here until I get back! You have to promise me, pinky swear on it.” He insists as the magehand pokes at her own formless limbs. It’s a slight struggle, shifting her hand into something more like a hand but she manages it. He nods as she links one little finger with his before dashing off.

Lucretia sinks back to the floor and tries to keep herself centered. Just for Angus, she’ll clutch at the stitching of her soul, hold it together until he makes it back. For Angus, she can do it--for just a little bit longer.

_He’s safe,_ the voice insists twisting in her mind and snapping out at loose sutures, _Let go. Let go. Let go!_

But Lucretia grasps the frayed ends of herself tighter, protects them from the voice that hisses and snarls. It isn’t so friendly anymore, isn’t so comforting and it’s--It’s something to _spite_. She made a promise, she won’t break it even if it means she’s still hurting for a little longer. She promised, she tells the little voice. She pulls on that deep _deep_ well of anger she’s kept under tight control for so long and the voice settles down. She can definitely keep herself _her_ for just a little longer. 

For Angus, she can do it for Angus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're in the home stretch! About two more chapters, more or less and Angus is gonna get Lucretia a happy ending so help him


	10. Chapter 10

_“Mom, holy fu—”_ Lucas’s voice is a surprise but not entirely unpleasant. It figures as much, Angus is so smart and he was there earlier to see her rather intense response to her stepson. Even now, the sight of him fills her with a grounding warmth not terribly unlike Angus.

Still, she isn’t sure how much good it will do, perhaps it will give her a few more hours, days if she’s particularly stubborn but these two boys can’t be by her side constantly. They can’t contain the magic that already bubbles under the surface of her soul, warping her form into static.

Sooner or later she’s going to fizzle out and if she’s entirely honest with herself, and now she finally _finally_ can be, she doesn’t want them to see that. Like a great old lioness, she’s ready to wander off into the night to die on her own—She remembers how much it pained Maureen to simply watch her struggle, none of her children need to watch her fall apart at the seams.

They deserve goodbyes, she thinks. The rest of her family received them nearly a decade ago, quiet, innocuous words in the week or so leading up to her great action. They hadn’t known at the time, but now with memories freshly restored they should remember and that’s enough. She doesn’t need to hurt them again by forcing herself into their lives for a goodbye they would likely spurn.

But her _boys_, they deserve _more_.

“We kind of stole this from the spaceship, don’t tell Uncle Davenport.” Lucas’s words huff out all in a rush though it’s less from guilt and more because it appears that her two boys have ran about the moonbase fetching various objects.

Lucretia glances at the things piled in the arms of her two boys. Ah, she shouldn't be terribly surprised by the apparent plan Angus has concocted. She is grateful he was thoughtful enough to fetch Lucas as opposed to one of her other be critically inclined family members. Still, with Lucas setting up almost sheepishly had she any eyebrows one would be raised quite imperiously, **“Those are Barry’s.”**

Lucas blinks, a bit startled but Angus looks completely nonplussed. Trust her eldest boy to forget the fact that the clearly necromantic tools piled in his arms were more likely to belong to the necromancer of the family and not the engineer and captain. He shuffles his feet slightly and murmurs, “Then don’t tell uh, Uncle Barry? Oh, that’s _weird_ I have so many uncles now.”

Angus tuts as he unloads his own burden of objects on to the floor, “_Focus_, Mister Lucas.”

“Fuck, you’re right! Sorry, Angus.” At the motion, Lucas snaps into action pulling out a carton of some sort of silvery powder from the pile and quickly pouring a wide circle around the three of them, Angus trails beside Lucas surveying his work with a small frown. Seeing her two boys makes her heart swell in an odd way she hasn’t felt in a very long time. Lucretia’s unsure of exactly what they’re doing until she spots a binding rune forming under Lucas’ careful hand. In a flash of crackling white light, her form surges forward to peer down at the rune. Lucas yelps and tries to swat away the mage hand she extends to poke at the iridescent dust--diamond dust she realizes.

**“You’re binding me to the moonbase?”**

It isn’t a terrible plan really, a tangible object tether isn’t ideal but she’s seen it done with middling to successful results on occasion. Usually with phylacteries but Lucretia, like Barry and Lup, is a rather unique lich, in that their phylacteries are bound to more metaphysical concepts than little objects. Technically speaking, this will be something of a downgrade for her but it might stay stable for a few months. That isn’t--Perhaps that _wouldn’t_ be so bad, she thinks as she ignores the little voice in the back of her mind screaming for release. A few months is enough for her to say goodbye to her boys and her bureau, maybe even find a successor to run the bureau when the tether snaps and she falls apart.

Recovering from his momentary surprise Lucas grins at her and Lucretia can’t help the way her soul buzzes with glee at the sight of that smile. He’s distracted in equal parts by her and his project that Lucretia watches her eldest not catch Angus’ aborted motion for him to be quiet and continue the ritual. Of course, that has Lucretia paying closer attention to the runes as Lucas moves on from the ones on the ground. He’s still smiling as he takes out his pocket knife and knicks one finger before dipping it into the dust, “We thought about that but it wasn’t as stable as a huma--”

_Oh_, it clicks softly the moment Lucas smears a bloody, glittering trail across his forehead. He’s still smiling and Lucretia’s soul stutters with the slow realization. Color fades from her vision, just for a moment as she looks hard at her boy and sees the way his soul is beginning to attune with her own. No, _absolutely_ _not_. The rune on the ground forgotten she reaches for him and Lucas’ smile finally fades into a grimace that looks almost resigned as the mage hands gather him up and yank away the diamond dust.

**“Lucas Roman Miller, I will _not_ let you throw your life away for this--for me!”**

He’s squirming in her grip but it’s solid and firm enough that without magical intervention he’s unlikely to get out of it, “Mom, _listen_, we have a plan no one is going to get hurt,” He can’t quite break her hold. Good, that means he’s safe. That means he can’t throw away whatever second chance he managed to squeeze from the Raven Queen that allows him to be here at all. Lucas stares up at her with fiercely determined eyes and powers through his stutter to declare, “I-I know I had a plan last time but it’s not just my plan, it’s _our_ plan!”

That’s when the runes around them begin to glow and Lucretia nearly swears--How could Lucas have activated the binding while in her grasp? It makes no sense--Until her eyes drift over to Angus, standing on the other side of the circle his own bag of diamond dust in one bloodied hand as he finishes tracing the last binding rune against his cheek. She glances back down at Lucas, who sheepishly refuses to meet her gaze. 

_A distraction._

Really, she should have expected this from her terribly clever, terribly stupid boys.

Angus’ blood surges with magic and Lucretia feels something in her chest--Her heart? Her soul? All of her being is her soul and it crackles with unrestrained power but slowly, every so slowly everything burns a little less. Her brightness dims but it isn’t in a bad way, it’s like quenching a sword, the water wicks away the heat and leaves the metal stronger for it. She feels--Well, she’s not sure.

She feels something but she isn’t being _drowned_ by all the emotion churning in her mind.

“We’re _really_ sorry we had to trick you but it was the best plan, Ma’am!” Angus’ skin, just below the rune crackles with Lucretia’s own energy and she almost flinches back. Angus stands firm, not even a wince as the dark magic flows around him, entangling with his own, “Lucas has a far greater knowledge of necromancy than me but I’m very good at contracts, loopholes, and maybe a _little_ bit of blackmail.”

There is something soft creeping into her own magic, small but strong that smells like old books and tastes like burnt sweets. Angus’ magic collects in the very deepest pit of her soul before blooming up and weaving it’s way through her magic. Her _heart_ hurts even as the pain she’s felt for so long eases under the meticulous spread of Angus’ own fragment within her soul.

A whirring whine escapes her soul, sick with worry and healing, “You can’t cheat _death_, Angus.”

The tethers are tightening, Lucretia can feel the difference. Her very soul is settling, the mind feels less scattered and that voice is quieting. For the first time in ages her mind feels not calm but like the potential for calmness could be possible. In the moment her emotions are stretched taut but the thread is no longer fraying. A careful mending has been done by a delicate and loving hand. Angus smiles triumphantly before her and declares, “Seven out of seven of my immediate family members beg to differ on _that_, Ma’am.”

The laugh that bubbles from Lucretia’s being isn't unexpected, she can’t remember the last time she truly laughed. Before Maureen died, for certain but even before that, before she drove Maureen away. That feels like a better estimate. It isn’t unwelcome but it does feel out of place--though perhaps less so when it’s joined with a giggle from Angus and a nasal snort from Lucas.

Once the laughter peters off Angus’ expression sobers to something much more serious. He stares at her as straight on as anyone can stare at a being made predominantly of luminescent magic, “If you’re worried about Mister Kravitz, he won’t do a thing to me, Ma’am. I didn’t have very much time but I _did_ think this through.”

Lucas nods, “Yeah, I have a history and whatnot so if I was the one to do it they would probably just boot me into the stockade but Angus realized that we’ve actually got some pretty good cards to play.”

Angus smiles, all teeth and the smug assurance of a cat that managed to steal the cream, “If the Raven Queen comes after me for this she’s pretty much assured herself that she’s going against all seven birds, the entire bureau of balance, and the Neverwinter militia. Now I guess that last two aren't as intimidating but I think a goddess as smart as her realizes it would be a bad idea to go up against The Birds on a completely united front to defend their most favorite little boy detective!”

It makes a degree of sense but it also makes a terrifying target that the boy has just put on his own back. The idea of Lucas being prepared to spit at the feet of the goddess of death is not a terribly surprising one, her boy holds grudges as strongly as she does. That Angus is willing to do the same is worrying and exhilarating, especially when she can literally feel his love and conviction pulsing in tight ribbons around her very soul, “Angus what you two have done is _serious_\--”

“Ma’am, We _are _serious. What you needed to stay here was a tether than we gave you a tether, one that won’t _ever_ give up on you.” Angus stomps his foot, his entire body taut with emotion. The diamond dust runes crusting on his cheeks run with tears and Lucretia pauses, just for a moment. Lucas opens his mouth, likely to add on some manner of support to the younger boy but Lucretia beats him to it,

“Lucas, you’re grounded.”

Her boys both splutter. Lucas’ face reddening as he exclaims, “_Mom!_”

“Y-You can’t ground an adult, ma’am.”

Next, her gaze falls on the young detective, she sighs, “Angus, you’re _also_ grounded.”

She stays firm for all of thirty seconds before mage hands snake forward and pull the two boys closer. She can’t hug them--Not now but maybe soon. Maybe she’ll figure something out. Now that she has time, she has them. If the rest of her family doesn’t want her anymore so be it, that is what she’s earned. Still, just maybe, she has also earned _this_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, hasn't it? My life has been a little topsy-turvy lately but I finally managed to get this finished. All that's left is actually an epilogue of sort but uhhhhh, it's *very* long. Like, it may end up being equal in length to the rest of the fic so like it might be a hot minute till it's ready. It is a PoV swap tho! This will be our last chapter with Lucretia at least in this fic, I haven't decided if I'd like to write any sidefics for this series yet.


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